Members of the Bessemer City Council and Mayor Edward May are still butting heads about electronic bingo.
Bessemer City Council bingo committee members want to have a local electronic bingo ordinance in place before any new state laws are passed so that existing businesses could be grandfathered in.
Bessemer Mayor Edward May is a vocal opponent of electronic bingo and any plans to bring it to Bessemer. Now May says the council is suing to keep him and the city clerk from standing in the way.
"You just got a lot of things being done here, hastily in my opinion, to open the doors irrespective as to the process or the legality of it. They don't care. They just want to get those doors open and keep you in court and hopefully they'll find a judge who is sympathetic to their cause, who will enter an order basically enjoining us from closing them down or interfering with them," said Mayor Edward May.
Bessemer City Councilor Louise Alexander is on the three person bingo committee. She claims Bessemer did pass an electronic bingo ordinance last fall. According to Alexander it should already be in effect, because there were no objections within ten days of its passage. She says the council is seeking clarification from a court so that the city can start collecting revenue from permit applicants.
May says the lawsuit was filed earlier this week and he thinks it's a big waste of taxpayer money.
“Nobody has served me with a copy of it but we are aware that something has been served,” said May. “I think it's an attempt to compromise the office of the mayor, to cause me to for lack of a better word, to cause me to become fearful and to back off. That is not going to happen. Gambling in my opinion is illegal in the State of Alabama. There is no legal means in my opinion to establish gambling in Bessemer or the Bessemer Cut-off so again I think basically that's what it's all about.”
May also has a bone to pick with the bingo committee over legal fees which he feels were never authorized by the entire council.
Councilor Alexander contends that the costs were approved by a majority of city councilors.
